Vidarr gestured for the others to go through first, and looked down at the Praetorian. “This is why you came with us?” he said. “To make sure we would be released?”
“Mostly, yes. Eshmunazar or his wife could have done very similar things. My way is just quieter, that’s all. They’re waiting for us off to the southeast side of the facility, past the chain-link fences. Sari, think you can go be distracting for the guards in the towers? Thank you. I don’t want to have to hurt them.”
Awed glances from his fellow giants, and Torvald finally growled to Vidarr, in their own language, “Why are they helping us?”
“I don’t know.” It had been so damned long since anyone had treated them like people, that it was hard not to be suspicious, and he understood Torvald’s reservations. But he actually thought that the Praetorians might be assisting them for that rarest, and yet simplest of reasons: because it was the right thing to do.
The search lights on the guard towers of the tiny prison spun towards another area of the compound, and they made their way to the southeast, where the chain link fences simply parted before them, like a curtain, and resealed behind them once more. Dim forms in the dark, all small, beckoning them into the concealment of the forest. “Quickly. Before they realize that the very large wolf that they just saw was a distraction,” Matrugena told them all, grinning.
In the shelter of the trees, one of the Praetorians lifted a hand, and incanted. A dome appeared over their heads, filling with dim light, no more than moonglow. Enough to see their faces, anyway. “The guards will see—” Vidarr protested.
“Nothing,” the sorcerer informed him, pulling his cloak more tightly around him, and shivering visibly. “The light’s coming from the walls of the dome, focused inwards. The dome itself prevents light and sound from exiting; specifically, it dampens the wavelengths of sound and light. Little variant on the anti-eavesdropping field I’ve used for years. I’d give us a little heat, too, but I’m saving my energy. Might be a long day.”
“I’ll handle our tracks,” the small woman beside the short sorcerer noted. “Snow and ice are a little closer to my field anyway.”
“If it’s the last thing I do, Min, I’m going to break you of thinking of sorcery as four elements.”
“Five, actually.” A little toss of her head that suggested that this was a long-standing argument, and then she began to murmur under her breath and made a little tossing gesture back the way they’d come.
“Wood is not an element. It’s an organic compound, derived from carbon and a dozen other substances.”
“Kanmi-kun, shush.”
“Yes, dear.”
During the byplay, the male wolf had moved to the valkyrie, and now flopped down, rather gracelessly, at her feet. More precisely, on her feet. Now the creature panted up at her, and the valkyrie put a hand on his head. “I am sorry,” she said, simply. “I should have come and checked on you before this, but we wanted information, and Trennus told us all that you were all . . . all right. Agitated at being confined, and naturally so.” A gentle hand to the wolf’s ruff, and then a look at the rest of them. “I don’t suppose you’ve remembered your name?” she asked the wolf.
The creature shook his head. Think . . . may try . . . Sikke. The male wolf’s voice was far more tentative than Ima’s. He’d retained less self, by any measure. Is good name. Means victory.
Vidarr looked around, and shook his head. “All right,” he said. “We’re free. Now what?” He looked around. “Sari . . . the spirit said you’d found one of the places that made us what we are?”
“Possibly,” the valkyrie replied. “The information we have been given sounds entirely like a trap. Which is why Brandr and Erikir want to be the ones to spring it. They don’t want us getting hurt.” She hesitated, then added, quietly, “And Valhalla wants me out of the equation. You deserve to know that part.” She sighed. “But we cannot fail to investigate simply because it looks like a trap. The chances are good that the site really will have something to do with the . . . with your transformations.” She exhaled, and Vidarr noticed that while everyone’s breath bloomed into a white cloud, hers was barely visible. “So obvious a trap might not even have us as the target. We might be, somehow, the bait. Or . . . any one of a half dozen scenarios. And I don’t want to see Brandr and Erikir hurt or killed if we can prevent it.” She shrugged.
Vidarr studied her for a long moment. Valkyrie and bear-warriors evoked a certain ingrained respect from him; they were the servants of the gods, marked out from other mortals for heavier burdens and bigger tasks than mere day-to-day survival. Impossible to imagine one of them tending bar or helping someone select scented candles in a shop somewhere. Vidarr was more than a little angry with the gods right now. But that didn’t stop him from giving respect, particularly to this valkyrie. With her aid, and the aid of the spirit-woman with the glimmering phoenix feathers tucked in her hair, he had another sane brother. With her aid, and the aid of the deer-like spirit, Ima had a voice. “You want our help springing the trap?”
“We would welcome your aid. Ima’s, if she wishes to come with us. The others . . . .” The cool gray eyes shifted towards the other giants. “Some of you, like Sikke here . . . and you,” she looked at the giant who had still not yet chosen a new name, “have only just awakened from a long nightmare. Others, like you, Helga, and you, Torvald . . . this need not be your fight, if you do not wish it.”
“Our choice,” Vidarr said, drawing out the words thoughtfully.
“Yes. Absolutely. Even you and Ima, Vidarr. I ask you to stand with us, but I do no more than ask. We’ll try to make sure that your tracks are covered, if you return to the forest.”
Vidarr didn’t need more than a second to make his decision. “For myself? Try to keep me from coming with you. You’d need thicker walls than that prison there.” He jerked his head to where the searchlights were still frantically panning around, looking for the escapees. “If this is the place where I was manufactured there may be others of my kind there. I ask that we try not to kill all of them. Though I realize there may be no real choice in the matter. The ettin, the two-heads? The grendels, the ones that all but have fur? They might not be . . . there may be no way to recover them.” The words galled him to say, but pragmatically, if his kind was there, uncaged, they would be used as guards for the facility, he was sure. Their own territoriality would be employed against their own interests. He grimaced. “Anyone else? The doctors? The guards, who pitted us against each other? The ones who . . . fed us? The ones responsible for what we are?” His voice dropped to a low growl. “Those I would tear apart with my own hands.” He looked down at his massive paws. “And may have to. I have no weapons.”
“Took the liberty of retrieving your worldly goods,” the short sorcerer assured him, and pointed to the lumps in the snow behind the Praetorians.
Vidarr’s eyes widened, and he reclaimed his hugely oversized musket, made for him by a Sami gunsmith, and the sack of iron spheres and gunpowder it used for ammunition. Then turned and looked at the others. “Ima?”
I go with you. Ima bared her fangs. You are not the only one with scores to settle. I would meet the ones who have taken my self from me. And I would sink my teeth in their throats.
I . . . I go, too. Sikke, the male wolf offered. You have helped me. I help you now.
The nameless giant lowered his head. “Japik,” he said, unexpectedly. “That is the name . . . that I want. And I will go with you. Because until today . . . I did not remember what a name was.”
Helga and Torvald conferred, quietly. And, to Vidarr’s mingled delight and terror, both nodded in acquiescence. “We’re not much of an army,” he told the Praetorians. “But it’s a start, yes?”
It was the very early hours of the morning as they walked out of the small town of Lieksa. They couldn’t use their motorcar without attracting attention, and the giants and wolves wouldn’t have fit in it, anyway. So they trudged, on foot, and Sigrun quietly worried a
bout those from more southerly climates. Fennmark was colder even than where she’d grown up in Cimbri-on-the-Caestus, in Nova Germania, and the night-time temperatures were surely enough to freeze exposed skin in short order. “Esh, keep a light heat enchantment going in everyone’s boots,” she murmured to the sorcerer. “None of us needs frostbite.”
“No need to tell me twice,” Kanmi said, his teeth chattering. “This is . . . definitely one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had. Going outside, in the snow, in the middle of the night, and heading out into a frozen wilderness, which includes an iced-over lake, frozen bogs, giant wolves, giant giants . . .”
“Cheer up,” Trennus told the Carthaginian, blithely. “It’s been in the fifties during the day. The ice on the lake could be very fragile, so it’s actually a good thing that the nights are freezing. You don’t want the ice to crack underfoot and plunge you into the water.”
There was a pause. “This is your revenge for me laughing at your fear of airplanes for the past ten years, isn’t it, Matru?” Kanmi’s voice was a little ill. The Carthaginian didn’t like water any more than Adam liked being underground, or Trennus enjoyed being in the air.
Trennus just laughed.
“Shh,” Vidarr said, suddenly, and gestured for everyone to halt. Sigrun raised her head, the hair on the back of her neck prickling in spite of the warm, fur-lined hood of her cloak. “Listen,” the jotun whispered.
Sigrun could only hear it faintly, at first. A steady flapping sound, that somehow seemed vaguely familiar. She crouched down, and gestured for everyone else to follow suit, tipping her head up to look at the night sky. A shadow crossed over the stars, cast into silhouette against a thin bank of moon-touched clouds . . . long, thin body. Wide wings. Back legs folded back to align with the tail in flight, like a rudder. “Lindworm,” Vidarr whispered. “Hunting, I think. There are a few sheep farms—there!”
The last word was louder as the slowly-cruising creature folded its wings to stoop through the air, and Sigrun lost sight of it. A strangled, unhappy sound, as if from a dying creature, echoed through the deeper woods, the noise muffled by the snow that still draped the ground. It feeds, Saraid said, calmly. Go. While it remains distracted by the entrails of what it found.
Sigrun was glad to follow that advice. A lindworm was a creature of blind instinct, or so the legends said. Of course, wolves were also, supposedly, creatures of instinct, and yet, what were the fenris, but man and beast melded together in terrible unity? What could the lindworms be? she wondered, and then banished the thought, and merely hoped that none of the creatures had a nest near the facility.
Lieksa lay along the bank of frozen Lake Pielinen. The island of Kinahmonsaari itself was a three-mile hike across the ice in a direct line from the town, or a much longer trek around the jagged shoreline. They paused just at the edge, and Adam stomped one foot, hesitantly, on the snow-covered surface. “Is it going to crack?” he asked, shivering.
“This is at least two feet thick,” Trennus replied, crouching in the snow that blanketed the ice sheet. “My teasing Esh aside, it’s not going to crack easily. The real problem is that unless Esh keeps his invisibility shield around us, we’re going to stick out like bugs on a plate out in all that open space.”
“I can manage, so long as everyone keeps together,” Kanmi said, staring at the wide, open expanse of white before them. “The only other choice is the long route, around the shoreline. Through trees and bogs and whatever else the gods saw fit to put here.”
“No bogs,” Sigrun said, succinctly. “The chances of encountering a random jotun or ettin or whatever are greatly increased if we go through the forest.”
She heard Adam’s exhalation. “Across the lake,” he said, sliding his automatic rifle to his back so he’d have his hands free. “Esh, spread your invisibility out as much as you can. The jotun and the wolves are heavy—no offense, Vidarr—”
“None taken. I have no wish to risk the ice cracking. The cold won’t hurt us, but we can still drown. Not something I want to experience twice. We’ll spread out, within the limits you set.”
Kanmi set his teeth, and expanded the invisibility dome, and then had to rely on Minori to guide him, as he walked.
It was close to four antemeridian when they reached the shore of the island in question, and Sigrun was aware of low growls from both wolves as they drew nearer. I remember these scents, Ima admitted, quietly. I can smell . . . misery and death, even from as far as we are. Smell of the bogs, ringing the island itself, the shallowest parts of the lake. I know this place. She whined for a moment, and then began to growl once more.
“You’re sure?” Vidarr asked her.
The nose remembers what the mind does not. I am sure I have been here before. They put us in the ground in fall. Let us gestate all winter. We broke free of the earth in spring. And we ran in winter again, or close. I remember these scents.
Sigrun nodded to herself, and crouched behind a tree. Someone might put up illusions to fool eyes and ears, but who would think to disguise smells? “You remember the layout?” Adam hissed to the giants and wolves.
Vidarr’s voice was tormented. “Large building at the center. Never allowed in there. The hospital was to the northeast. I . . . don’t remember . . . I can remember the fighting pits, ringed with our cages, but we were never allowed out of there . . . .”
“I can take to the air, and scout,” Sigrun offered.
“They see you in the air, and this is over before it begins,” Kanmi shot back at her.
I will scout, Saraid offered. I see much, and none will see me. The spirit manifested partially, and Sigrun’s eyebrows rose. The spirit had adopted a humanoid form this time, not her centaur-like self. She retained dainty doe hooves at the end of mostly humanoid legs, but the antlers on her brow had been replaced with wolf ears. And she’d swathed herself in what looked like hides and furs, as if in emulation of the others; it wasn’t as if she could feel the cold, no matter how naked her form might be. The shifts in form seemed significant, somehow. Saraid lifted her hands to her ears, briefly, smiled faintly, and then melted off into the night.
She returned, ten minutes later, and had to manifest fully to draw on the ground. And promptly teetered a little, and almost fell—would have fallen entirely, except that Lassair caught her arm. You’ve never used two legs before, instead of four, Lassair said, chuckling. Go easy until you are used to it.
Even manifesting physically is new for me, Saraid admitted, looking shamefaced, her eyes downcast. Here. See what I have seen. The spirit drew in the snow, rapidly, showing them all a large, central building, four smaller, rectangular buildings scattered around it, and a series of round guard towers around them. “Heavily guarded for a defunct ley-facility,” Kanmi assessed, after a moment. “What’s behind the doors on each of these?”
Wolves here, Saraid said, pointing at the southeastern building. Kennels built for wild creatures, on one side, and massive cells built for creatures who have been . . . conjoined . . . on the other. Distaste in her voice. This building, to the southwest? Giants. Dozens of them, all in cages. Three pits—
“Three rings at the center of the building,” Vidarr said, hoarsely. “That’s where they put us to fight.”
Yes. There is some fighting there, even now. Saraid sounded distressed. Due south, between these buildings, a barracks, filled with guards. And northeast . . . a hospital and barracks building. All humans. No one who has been transformed.
“And the central building?” Trennus asked. “It’s over the ley-line, yes? It’s a solid, strong line. But the line it’s in resonance with is . . . several miles away. I can see why they abandoned this site.” He grimaced. “What’s inside?”
I do not know. I . . . looked. But I saw nothing. Just leaves and debris and pieces of fallen ceiling, rusting equipment. It looked abandoned. Saraid’s voice was confused.
And when they all moved up to the edge of the tree line, to try to determine an angle of approach, still more c
onfusion. For none of the humans or jotun or wolves could see the additional buildings Saraid had described. Just a single, darkened building at the center of a wide clearing. You do not see the lights from the guard towers? Lassair demanded, in a tone of disbelief. How can you not?
Sigrun stared blankly at the darkened, abandoned clearing in front of her. Lassair put a hand on her shoulder. Use your other eyes, sister.
I can’t. I can only see people’s essences. Nothing more.
Sister, Lassair’s tone was affectionate and exasperated at once, do you intend to limit yourself forever to what you have always been and always done? Humans grow. Humans change. The gain in complexity over a lifetime is one of the most intoxicating things about mortal life.
Sigrun grimaced. Lips thin, she glared at the clearing, fighting the urge to tell Lassair how wrong she was. “I can’t see any buildings, besides the dilapidated one at the center,” she finally returned, grudgingly. Which was true. If she really concentrated, she thought she could see . . . shadows. Though that could have been her imagination. “But I can see faint sparks. Human spirits.” She hated even saying the words out loud. She couldn’t ignore the speculative glances Adam, Trennus, Kanmi, and Minori each sent her, either, and squelched her agitation.
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